A/N: Woohoo I think this was a pretty quick update. I think It's still within a week. First I want to thank all the readers who read my fic because thanks to you guys GLITCHED HAS 4000 HITS! To me, that's a lot. And thank you reviewers! You make my day! I seriously love you guys! Anyway this is where the plot starts to thicken!

GLITCHED: Hidden Pitfall

Tuesday, day eight of Project Lunch. A day to be remembered.

"Kuroro!" Neon bounded out the library's front door, laughing and screaming with her shrill teenage voice. "Hey, where are you going? You're going to the library right?"

I glanced at the humble building behind her. Strange. "Yes, I am."

I watched as she squealed and laughed below me. She placed a delicate finger on her chin, saying, "I wish I could stay and keep you company, but I promised to meet up with my friend. You remember her from when I introduced you guys last year?"

I leaned back on my heels and scanned through the many faces in my memory bank. A girl with a small face and nervous green eyes stood out. If I remembered correctly, she was a quiet and shy girl.

"I think I do. Was her name Marie?" I asked amiably.

"Yup! That's her! So I gotta go now," she admitted with sheepish giggle.

"Oh, don't let me keep you. Go on," I said as I stepped aside.

Neon came up and threw her arms around me in a hug before running past me with her long pink hair bouncing behind her.

I turned around and returned down the path toward the library. I pulled the door open, hearing the bells chime above my head. Brushing a hand through my sticky hair, I breathed a sigh and relaxed in the relatively cooler indoor air.

"Hello?" I called out into the silent building. Surprisingly, there was no one coming to greet me.

I walked upstairs hoping to find Kurapika in front of a bookshelf or two. Indeed, he was standing in front of a bookshelf, staring intensely at labels and categories.

I cleared my throat. "Is this how you treat your patrons?"

He didn't bat an eye at my taunt. Instead he pulled out a handful of books and rearranged them on a higher shelf. Distractedly he said, "No. Just you."

I had to grin at that. "Well I'm honoured. Did you learn to read footsteps while I've been busy?"

He mumbled softly, "Ah, something like that."

And I was neither surprised nor skeptical that he did. This kid was full of possibilities.

I walked to the area where I always sat in comfort as I watched Kurapika work. As I got to the sofa, I noticed a basket on top of the long table. I sat down in front of it and realized that the basket was woven in a feminine design with ribbons integrated between straw. There were corners of a checkered handkerchief hanging from the edges. Neon.

"I thought food isn't allowed in the library," I reprimanded the librarian. Crossing one leg over the other, I provoked, "Or are you playing favourites."

He looked over his shoulders with a frown, regarding the guilty basket momentarily before returning to sorting books with a sigh. "She 'insisted' I take it. I tried refusing her, but Neon never does listen."

"Hmn," I hummed thoughtfully while leaning back into the sofa. Staring up at the ceiling, I envisioned the whole scenario. "What's the occasion?"

"Nothing?" he answered apprehensively. Sensing an oddity in my behaviour, he asked, "Why?"

Strange. I propped my elbows on top of my knees and cupped my chin in my palm. Smiling, I said, "Just thought it was unusual that Neon would bother to cook for you on a whim."

He paused in his work, turning to look at the basket again before placing his book down and striding over. He must have found it unusual too.

Opening the lid to the basket, he peered into its contents. On one side was a plate of curry rice and on the other was a bowl of curry noodles. Kurapika groaned a string of incoherent words and pushed the basket toward me. I watched his face blanch and eyebrows knot before I concluded with a quirk of my lips that Kurapika did not like curry. In any form.

"Here. Since you didn't bring any lunch with you today, you must be hungry. Eat it," he pointed at the basket.

I stared at him quietly as I tried to follow his logic. If I hadn't brought lunch with me, wouldn't that mean I already ate? Not to mention the food I brought along with me were meant for him.

But I was curious about the curry rice and curry noodles Neon especially made for Kurapika. It was odd for Neon to cook for Kurapika when she had never—without an occasion—gone out of her way to give me her homemade food.

"Why not?" I reasoned. Because worst case scenario is I die from food poisoning. This wasn't the first time I risked myself to satisfy my curiosity anyway.

I pulled the basket in front of me and fished out the plate of curry rice. I gave the curry rice a once over. I looked up to Kurapika's disgusted oceanic eyes and smirked. "Since I'm doing you a favour, you have to help me with my work later."

The blond caught my gaze and held it in search of my ulterior motive. Dropping his gaze, he seated himself on the opposite sofa with a huff of defiance. "And why would I do that?"

"I wonder what Neon will say when she finds out you gave away her hard work. I wonder how long it will take me to convince her to keep making you curry dishes," I humoured.

His brow twitched and he raised a hand to massage a temple. "You would threaten me."

"If it works, then yes."

~x~

6:00 PM: shops had closed; people were eating dinner in their cozy homes. I was standing at the mouth of a mine with an irritated blond beside me.

The reason the blond might have been so peeved was probably because of the task I was demanding from him. To show he was adverse to the idea of digging down many levels of ground and dust, he rooted himself beside me and refused to move.

"I am not doing labour work for you because of a plate of curry," he stated quite clearly.

I sighed and turned to face him. "I only need gold ore, so we'll only be down three floors. I'll let you keep everything else."

He groaned. "Why do I keep ending up doing labour work with you? And I don't want your leftovers."

But he went into the mine anyway. His actions often contradicted his words. I kept quiet following him in lest he changed his mind.

We travelled down the stairs of the first three floors and stopped on the fourth floor. I took off my bag and pull out our equipment.

"You take the hoe," I said as I handed Kurapika the hoe.

I took the hammer for myself.

"You will dig for the ore. I will crack open the ore lying around to see if they're gold in the meantime," I monotonously instructed the blond with my hammer at hip.

Thus we began our four hours of painstaking, backbreaking and energy-draining labour. When nothing remotely valuable appeared, even I was starting to get a little frustrated halfway through. Gold was never this scarce before.

I tossed away another dozen of junk ore. At this point, I would be glad to even find copper ore—no, even Black Grass would help.

"What have you found so far?" I asked an equally frustrated Kurapika.

"Meagre amounts of coins, two pieces of Black Grass and dust," he counted out his Black Grass and looked up to me. "You want the Black Grass? I've eaten two already."

I reached out to take it from his hands and it didn't take longer than two seconds for me to consume and digest them.

Was today a bad time to mine? Had someone already mined all the gold before us? As I hammered another pile of ore Kurapika dug up, I couldn't stop the redundant questions from swarming my head.

By the time I finished evaluating the value of my current pile of ore, Kurapika came over and dropped a larger piece of ore at my feet.

"If this one isn't gold, I'm leaving," he confidently announced. I wasn't sure if his confidence came from his desire to leave or if he really did find a good ore.

After giving the large ore a look, I felt a twinge of hope. I carefully hammered away at the edges and when a faint glimmer of yellow sheen reached my eyes, peace and content washed over my dark dusty face like the warm bath water of a winter night. This might have even been happiness.

"Finally," we both cheered in unison.

After a moment of celebration, I placed the ore and our tools into my bag. In the beginning I was expecting a lot more gold ore, but seeing how long finding one gold ore took, I wasn't planning on mining further.

"That took longer than expected," I mumbled through a sigh.

"I feel cheated," Kurapika complained as he rubbed his sore hands together.

A slight smile pulled at my dry lips when I said, "I'll treat you to lunch tomorrow."

"Please don't," he pleaded.

We traversed the three flights of stairs to be greeted by long awaited fresh country air. I inhaled the evening breeze and looked up to the dark sky splattered with twinkling stars. I exhaled and inhaled again. Again and again.

Kurapika had already walked ahead, leaving me standing by the entrance of the mine like a breathing statue. When my lungs squeezed out another breath, I felt a pang at my ribs. My chest suddenly felt tighter with every breath and when air came out of my trachea, it came out in short painful gasps. Then I realized I wasn't breathing anymore; I was wheezing. The dark night scenery became engulfed by blinding white lights in my eyes and I felt my weight shift to my head. In a second, I felt my knees on pebbled terrain and my face on damp dirt.

Tuesday, day eight of Project Lunch, Kuroro Lucifer had collapsed.

Kuroro my dear, this is what I feel like when I forget to save and collapse from fatigue. And lose a lot of money. But I'm sure you didn't go down from something as common as fatigue, right? Ha-ha-ha...

Thanks for reading and please review! Until next time lovelies!

P.S. I seriously need to start writing longer chapters. LOL. Kill me.